Inside, Lily’s parents were pacing anxiously in the living room, the tension suffocating, thick enough to feel on the skin. Lily sat curled in a corner of the couch, knees against her chest, her eyes still wide with the strange mixture of curiosity and dread she’d felt ever since discovering the eggs beneath her bed the night before. Every sound in the house seemed amplified—the ticking of the clock, the low hum of the refrigerator, the faint rustle of leaves outside the window. Everything felt wrong now. Everything felt dangerous.

The expert entered with a serious expression, greeting the family with a nod. He didn’t waste time on small talk. “Show me,” he said quietly.

Lily led him down the hallway, her small hand trembling slightly as she pointed toward her bedroom door. Her parents followed close behind her, exchanging nervous glances, unsure whether to prepare themselves for reassurance or catastrophe.

When the expert stepped into the room, he immediately went silent. He crouched beside the bed with deliberate slowness, lifting the dust ruffle as carefully as someone disarming an explosive. The family held their breath.

There they were—still untouched, still clustered together in that chilling formation. Smooth. Pale. Softly glistening, as though the surface was alive. They seemed to pulse subtly, almost imperceptibly, as if something inside them was shifting.

The expert’s hand froze mid-reach.

For a moment, no one spoke. No one even dared to breathe.

Then he let out a sound—half gasp, half whisper—something that made every hair on Lily’s arms stand up. There was fear in his eyes, unmistakable and raw. He recoiled slightly, and that movement alone sent a jolt of panic through the room.

“Sir?” Lily’s father asked, his voice tight. “What… what are they?”

The expert didn’t respond immediately. He simply stared. He adjusted his glasses, leaned closer, then backed away again, completely unsettled. Whatever he was seeing, it wasn’t anything he had expected. His initial amazement quickly shifted into something far more alarming.

Lily felt her heart thudding violently in her chest. She had never wanted to know the answer less in her life.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low, almost trembling.

“These,” he said, “are not regular eggs.”

The room went silent again, the weight of those words slamming into them.

Her mother covered her mouth with her hand as fear spread across her face. Her father stepped protectively in front of Lily without even thinking about it. The air seemed to grow colder.

The expert stood up quickly, wiping his palms against his pants as if they had begun to sweat. “I need all of you outside. Now.”

“But—” her father began.

“Now,” the expert repeated sharply, his tone leaving no room for debate.

They didn’t ask questions. They turned and hurried out of the bedroom, Lily’s mother clutching her daughter’s hand while her father urged them forward, the urgency in his voice unlike anything Lily had heard from him before.

As they rushed through the hallway, Lily’s parents attempted to make sense of the situation. The seriousness of what the expert had said—and what he hadn’t said—pressed down on them with suffocating weight. They exchanged frantic whispers about evacuation, about safety, about how quickly they should move, but they both knew the truth: there was no time. Talking about it felt pointless when every second suddenly seemed precious.

Those strange eggs had been sitting under their child’s bed. Inches away from where Lily slept at night. The thought alone made her mother’s stomach twist painfully.

As soon as they stepped outside, the air felt different—cooler, sharper, as though the house itself had turned hostile and was pushing them out. Lily clung to her mother’s arm, her mind replaying the moment she had first found the eggs. She had thought they were strange, maybe even interesting, but never dangerous. She had never imagined they could uproot her entire world in a single day.

Her father turned to the expert, who had followed them onto the front lawn, shutting the front door behind him with a firm, purposeful click. The man’s expression was grim now, almost urgent. He lowered his case to the ground and began rummaging through it, pulling out instruments Lily didn’t recognize—scanners, lights, tools that glowed faintly in the afternoon sun.

“What’s going on?” her father demanded. “What are those things?”

The expert didn’t look up. “I’m not sure yet,” he admitted. “But I know enough to say that your daughter was extremely lucky. And that none of you can go back inside until I determine exactly what we’re dealing with.”

Lucky?

The word sent a cold shiver down Lily’s spine.

Her mother wrapped an arm around her, but Lily could tell her mother was shaking too. The fear in the woman’s eyes was something Lily had never seen before—real, raw, uncontrollable fear.

The uncertainty gnawed at them. Each passing minute seemed to make their thoughts darker, their imaginations wilder. Were the eggs from an animal? A mutated species? Some parasitic organism? Something man-made? Something worse?

Her father paced the yard, running his hands through his hair over and over. “This can’t be happening,” he muttered. “Under her bed… My God.”

Lily watched the expert from a safe distance as he worked, scanning the house, checking instruments, jotting quick notes. He moved fast, like someone racing against an invisible clock.

Occasionally he glanced toward the window of Lily’s bedroom, and every time he did, something about his face hardened even more.

Lily couldn’t shake the memory of the eggs. The shape, the strange translucence, the way they had seemed to pulse faintly as if something inside them was alive and aware. She felt a deep twist of dread in her stomach.

Everything that had happened in the last hour felt unreal, like they’d stepped into someone else’s nightmare.

After several long minutes that felt like hours, the expert finally turned back toward the family. His face was even paler now, his jaw set in a tight line.

Lily’s father rushed toward him. “Tell me what’s happening. Are we in danger?”

The expert hesitated before answering—a hesitation that frightened them more than anything he could have said outright.

He took a slow breath, looked at all of them one by one, then said in a steady but chilling voice:

“Whatever laid those eggs… didn’t do it by accident. And it may not be far.”

Lily’s mother tightened her hold on her daughter, her pulse racing.

The expert continued, “We had to get out of your house right away. You did the right thing. I’m going back inside with protective gear. I don’t want any of you within twenty feet of the entrance until I know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

He opened his case again and pulled out a sealed, full-body suit.

Lily watched him with wide, terrified eyes as he began preparing to reenter the home—her home—where something strange, something unknown, something frightening had been hiding right beneath her bed.

And she couldn’t stop wondering…

What if those eggs had already started to hatch?